Patch 5.3 introduces a new world event, Battlefield Barrens, that explores the conflict between the Alliance, Horde, and Garrosh. There's a ton of stuff to do and collect as part of this event--but it's only around for a limited amount of time. It will be removed when Patch 5.4 hits.

Site artist Noxychu also made a comic about this event, capturing the spirit of helping the Darkspear in unexpected ways!

To unlock this world event, which takes place in Durotar and Northern Barrens, you'll need to do several new scenarios and a quest chain, Escalation. showing the underlying politics behind your faction.

Once the world event is unlocked, you can collect Kor'kron supplies through various ways to purchase vanity items and armor like Xan'tish's Flute.

Garrosh's influence can be seen in the Valley of Spirits being shut down, a Horde digsite in the Vale of Eternal Blossoms, and Kor'kron camps in the Northern Barrens.

There's also a new world event, Battlefield Barrens, in which you assist Vol'jin with the Darkspear Rebellion and collect some unique vanity items along the way. Don't delay though--this world event is only around for a limited time!

We've got summaries of all the new content below, as well as links to blue posts and Wowhead's comprehensive PTR coverage.

Patch Notes and Overview

Experience needed to increase from 85-90 has been reduced by 33%.Players get more control over loot rewards with a "Loot Specialization" menu option for bonus rolls, quests, Raid Finder, and Heroic Scenario loot. Read more here.Battlefield Barrens is a new world event in which Alliance and Horde players unite to undermine Garrosh and kill his Kor'kron guards for u

PvP is getting some radical changes and welcome additions in Patch 5.3! Most importantly, resilience is gone from gear, Season 13 gear won't be eligible for item upgrades, and all gear is being scaled down to ilvl 496 in arenas and battlegrounds. These changes are designed to make PvP a more welcoming experience for new players, instead of being something dreaded for School of Hard Knocks or Chapter II: Wrathion's War where undergeared players repeatedly meet a quick death.

There's also a greater emphasis on cosmetic PvP rewards in 5.3--enchants and special gear for high-ranked players. And since high-level Elite gear is getting a nerf, Elite gear now fills a transmog niche instead of serving as overpowered PvP gear.

Finally, there's a new arena and battleground, for which you'll get the fabulous Gorgeous title if you complete the meta.

You can now purchase that boss' Challenge Card and fight them again as much as you like.

Challenge Cards are a new addition to the Brawler's Guild--players can purchase them to fight any boss they've already faced.

Item Sources

Here are some of the interesting quest sources recently brought to our attention:Users participating in Battlefield: Barrens can purchase Raptorhide Boxing Gloves for Radical Mojo. Users can get one a week from

In today's news, we have an epic blue post talking about all the PvP changes coming in 5.3--they should encourage more players to try PvP instead of being disheartened by a gear gap. We're also investigating the elusive source of a new battle pet, Unborn Val'kyr, and have a few new spell changes from a tiny 5.3 PTR build this morning.

PvP in 5.3

With the new scaling system in battlegrounds and arenas bringing everything down to ilvl 496, players behind on gear won't be as big of a squishy target for BiS-geared players--all that awesome PvE gear is getting scaled down. This new system also won't encourage players to keep their scaled-down raiding epics and ignore PvP gear, as the extra stats on PvP gear will give a survivability edge.

CM Nakatoir gave a few examples of players that could currently be discouraged by PvP--a progressed Throne of Thunder raider, and someone in starter-PvP gear, both wanting to try something new. In both scenarios, they get crushed by an opponent in Tyrannical gear. The raider, while doing decent damage, is squishy and dies a lot, while the person in PvP gear does poor damage and dies easily to someone in full Tyrannical gear.

We've been making it a habit to do research surveys for advertising to help make Wowhead and the ZAM Network more relevant for our users. They've been pretty successful thanks to you guys. This user feedback helps us get more gaming oriented clients and makes the general ad experience more positive for our users.

This time marketing just wants to ask a simple question: do you use Steam or other digital distribution services? If so, which ones and why?

Do you use digital download services such as Steam? If so, which ones and why?

We are giving away five Cinder Kitten to five lucky commenters on this post as a token of our thanks (if you already have this pet, you can pick another Blizzard store pet). We'll be choosing their new owners on Thursday at 12:00PM PDT, so be sure to comment by then if you want a chance to win!

Classes

Festering Strike: An instant attack that deals 175%200% weapon damage plus 540 and increases the duration of your Blood Plague, Frost Fever, and Chains of Ice effects on the target by up to 6 sec.

Scourge Strike: An unholy strike that deals 165%135% of weapon damage as Physical damage plus 597. In addition, for each of your diseases on your target, you deal an additional 25% of the Physical damage done as Shadow damage.

In today's news roundup, Bashiok has been busy on the forums these past few days, covering professions, player feedback, and gearing up with Valor Points:

In Patch 5.3, item upgrades are returning at a reduced cost (0 Valor Points instead of 0 Valor Points) and several Shado-Pan Assault rewards are being moved down from Revered to a lower reputation requirement.

Justice Points are sidelined for now, and making players rely so much on Valor Points at the start of the expansion was an oversight.

In response to players asking about in-game surveys to provide feedback, Bashiok explained that Blizzard already amasses an exhaustive amount of player data, from talents players pick to what dailies are the most popular. Of course, forum feedback is also useful as it provides insights into player choices.

There were also a few interesting content tidbits: Black Temple was mean to be in the game at Burning Crusade's launch.

While most of Patch 5.3 was planned out a while ago, Battlefield: Barrens was only planned in 5.2.

Players gave lots of feedback on missing Heroic Dungeons at one point, so Heroic Scenarios are a nod to those players.